HENRY REEVE, JOURNALIST.

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 10268, 10 February 1899, Page 7

HENRY REEVE, JOURNALIST.

Luis-re Horn. T»ttring ninny years of this interesting cen- . % r HenrY Reeve occupied a prominent •tion in London socletv as a politician f of letters. He knew almost every - ' »of note in Fiance a.s well as in England. 1 J with main- of tha most illustrious men {the ai-i' lie*"" l 3 on terms of intimacy. The biop-.M> !l '' " f S!K '-* a man • snou * tl be a> , „_« entertainm-,- .and instructive, aud tlns Profe.-.5.-r i.aimhton has made it. although the iion-rolai'-'-.'l reader may periiaps think -that tm mui-li space, bus been devoted t:i affairs of .Suite. It must be remembered, howv. vcr that Mr Reeve saw. if 1 may appropriate WonLswortirs Hue. "the very pulse of ♦ lie ina.intie,' and I In- reo-i-d ol* what he saw and licnrd through a m-.st eventful period gupi'lii'-'- i4t )irst ■■••■■••■• >nf"rniation ,liat * s invalual>U to tho -Indent. Hut Mr Reeve, apart from the role hi; played in the world 0 [ politics, wis :i man bles-scd with a variety „f lifts, ami if lie ""vd mw.h of his success in life M hi- lit.--.iry accomplishments, he nwcl Hire to .'i character upon which friends could lent .ii:d "■ which statesmen could confide. . An inlliK'iiriil .■••"l ina.verly journalist like Hcnrv Kc<-vc a journalist who. while in close corrcspoi'' l *■''•<■ ' Vi 'h s'au—mien, could speak 1 with freedom and authority, is a pr-»duet of the ninetc-nth century. At an earlier pericd 0 { our hist-nrv he could m-t have existed, and. fl" * vt " ••••"■*' f ' i!l " u "- (ut revelation--, he would find it diili-ult, if not impossible, to occupy Mich a position in (Jerm.iny now. In Knglaiid tinder Queen Anne and the Georges ! journal i-Is were seldom able to write independent! v. and the!*! was no political organ that !w«i an extensive influence. A vehement and uiiXTumilmis invective secret ly prinUd and published anonymously, as Swift knew how to write it. might exercise a most potent influence; and articles written in the interest of ihe Government, when a man like Defio was ur.sv.Tupt;lons enough to write them, were of service to the party in power; but for the most part in the eighteenth century the political writer was a literary hack, willing to do dirty work for the pittance that supported him in his garret. Even in tho latter vea.vs of the century the debates in Parliament were not' allowed to be printed, and it was only by a variety of artifices, a iittlc exact knowledge due to a gocd mewi-v. and a good deal of imagination, llut -Johrwun managed to produce what he called "Tho Senate of Liliput." In 1771 six printers were summoned to the bur of the H'ltife for publishing debates; one of them, who refused to appear, was arrested, and this led to a collision between the House and the London magistrates. The Lord Mayor sent the Commons' messenger to prison for an unlawful anu-»t, and was himself sent to the Tower by the House. It was" the lust effort made by Parliament to resist public opinion in this direction, and from this period the Press began the new life which has made it an irresistible force in the country. The Morning Chronicle had appeared in "1769; tho Morning Post was fitarted in 1772: the Herald in 1780: and tho Timea iv 1785; and at the beginning oi the present century the publication of Jhe Edinburgh Review in 1802, and of its rival, the Quarterly Review, in 1809, exercised an influence on the politics and literature of the country unknown to the journalism of an earlier* period. To these reviews the firsi men of the time contributed, and have contributed ever since, and though neither periodical occupies as high a position as it did forty years ago. when there were fewer rivals in the field, the Edinburgh and Quarterly still hold a unique place in journalism, since they nllow of more elaborate essays than the monthly magazines can publish. This backward glance at the position of the Press is not irrelevant, because, as-1 have said, Mr Reeve, from the beginning of his career till its close. Ted the life of a journalist, iln this profession almost all the work lv* did was done anonymously: but, without,ocicupping a conspicuous position in the public .eye,*the Times leader writer and the editoi t*f the Edinburgh Review exercised for hal! a century greater power and responsibilitj than many a politician'whose name was familiar in the country. Henry Reeve was born at Norwich in 1813, and gained, as was fitting, his boyish educa- •* tion under his mother's eve. The lovo.of 'foreign travel, manifested through a long life, received a stimulus in early years. At ' tho are of seven his mother took the boy on -a visit to friends at Geneva, whom she knew only by correspondence, and he recalled in years the wearisomeness of the journey '-rfche forty-eight hours between CalaiS;.fuid Paris, the nine days on the road between Paris and Geneva, the seventy-eight hours between Lyons and the capital on,the return journey, and the whole day spent in crossing from Calais to Dover. On returning to England young Reeve went to the Norwich school, and though a favourite of the master was not happy. He took no part in the flumes, disliked the drudgery, and cared nothing for the rewards. „ •" At tho age of fourteen, when he had nearly reached the too of the school, he was placed with a private tutor, t and read a good deal of Greek and Latin. He had now, he writes, an insatiable appetite for books. Mrs Reeve, whose maiden name- was Taylor, had been brought up among the Unitarians, but Henry "conceived ut this age a decided preference for the services of the Church of England," and thought the services in the "Octatron Chapel," which his mother attended, cold and wanting in fervour. .In boyhood and early manhood there seems to have been ever the desire to think and act conscientiously, and at twenty-four, after much success and enjoyment, he wrote: "I strive daily to temper my long overflow of happiness ly the thought of death and changes for tne worse, by sympathy with the sufferings of those about mo and by the contemplation of those immortal sufferings which saved the world." At the age of forty-throe Reeve left the Times and undertook the editorship of the Edinburgh Review, winch he said wa3 "a sort of peerage rs compared with the tumult of the Lower l T mise,* and ♦his post he retained till his death.'